Hi!
So here is part 20. A big thanks goes to Kmar for her quick and wonderful beta.
Michael
Disclaimer: The recognizable characters and settings in this story are the property of D.C. Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions, and anyone else with a legal right to them, and I have no claim on them whatsoever, nor am I profiting by their use. It’s just the original stuff, that would be mine, written down to bring some entertainment to other FoLC.
The setting is right after “Season’s Greedings” in Season 2.
Blocks in >> << are literal thoughts by the character.
Rating: PG-13
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In part 19 Clark was finally able to track down Lois – in his apartment of all places – only to have her tell him that she wasn’t on the pill.
Part 20 /
TOC /
Comments **********
Clark’s mind came to a screeching halt, almost splattering itself against his skull as he tried to regain control of his thoughts. He had been fairly good at keeping his sanity as Lois had wildly jumped between lascivious teasing and heart wrenching confessions. But this final bombshell had been just a tad too much and now he had no idea what to say or do.
‘I’m not on the pill.’ Lois’ words kept echoing through his mind even while she was pressed against his chest. ‘I’m not on the pill.’ He wasn’t sure what those six words meant. What pill was she talking about, because the only pill he could think of would be *the* pill. But Lois would never engage in unprotected sex. Just like he would never sleep with a woman before they had even gone on their first date.
Not that he would have ever considered sleeping with any woman but Lois anyway. But this was beside the point. The bigger question was why he hadn’t used a condom when they had been together. It’s not like he hadn’t had sex-ed in high school, *the* talk with both his mother and then his father when he had been fourteen and sixteen respectively. Boy, those had been embarrassing birthday gifts indeed. After all, what fourteen-year-old boy wouldn’t just *love* to sit in the kitchen with his mother while she explained to him that babies didn’t usually get delivered by a spaceship, so to speak? She had even gotten a book on the subject, detailing the biologic facts without it being anything like the magazines he and his buddies had traded after school. And that had just been the *technical* stuff on this subject, because once that had been out of the way, the talk had shifted to responsibility and feelings and respect. God, that had been one afternoon he could have done without. Especially considering just how effective it had been – not. His parents were going to kill him. Or, rather, have a very serious and long talk with him, and he would die from embarrassment.
“Clark?” Lois’ shy whisper trickled into his thoughts. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused back on the woman in his lap, who now happened to look up at him with an expression of scared annoyance that only Lois could manage.
He knew she was expecting some form of reaction from him, that much was for certain. But what was he to tell her. ‘Uh’ would probably earn him a trip to the doctor in desperate need of reconstructive surgery on some very private parts of his anatomy, and anything else he could think of would be even more dangerous, right? What *had* he been thinking? Just because Lois hadn’t said anything that first night didn’t mean he needn’t mention it either. Of course, he *did* know what he had been thinking that night. In fact, it had been more or less the same thing he had been thinking this morning in the courthouse during their – and his – second time. And it had been about as far from the topic of birth control as it was possible while was still only focusing on the sex-goddess in front of him. The very same woman who was now curled up in a fluffy heap, wearing his sweats and looking at him as if she was about to make sure he wouldn’t ever have to worry about getting into this situation again. “I…”
Lois jumped up and away from him and immediately began pacing his living room. “Oh god, Clark. I’m not on the pill! And we made love *twice*.” After looking at him for a nanosecond, she went on, “Well, okay, we made love once and had a really crazy session of wild monkey-sex in the courtroom the second time.”
Clark had to quickly school his face into a neutral expression. It wouldn’t do for Lois to catch him with his bug-eyed stare and mouth hanging open if he wanted to live till tomorrow.
“But that’s not the point, is it? I mean, god, that had to have been about as good as sex can get and everything. Not that I really have much to measure you against, with me only having had one time with Claude and all. And you already know why that had been one of the most idiotic mistakes I’ve ever made. I mean, the only thing worse had been Luthor. Thank god I hadn’t been with him or anything like that. But whom am I talking to here? I’m sure you know all of that. So was it okay for you because, well, after Cat and Mayson and Tutu, the Nigerian princess, and who knows how many other girls you’ve been with I guess I don’t rate very high. But shouldn’t you have been using condoms? That’s just *so* irresponsible and you’re always such a goodie-two-shoes. Why didn’t you use protection, anyway?” Lois finally stopped in front of his TV, looking at Clark with a fiery glance. “Well?” she asked him again, folding her arms protectively over her chest.
“I was a virgin and I was dumb and I’m sorry, Lois!” Clark blurted out, her rant having finally managed to overload his brain. How could she even *think* that he was a womanizer? God, and if she wouldn’t believe him, he had no idea what she would do next. Perhaps he should just pick her up and carry her off to some deserted island. At least then she would be forced to talk to him and hear him out. That caused him to pause. The deserted island wouldn’t work, because one thing he knew for sure. If Lois didn’t want to listen to him, she would find a way to ignore him. Even if they were stuck in a forty square-feet cell without anything to contend with but each other.
“You were a *what*?” Lois screeched, staring at him as if he had just told her that he was an alien. Actually, when she *had* learned of his extraterrestrial status, she probably hadn’t looked this shocked. But he had no way of knowing for sure, another fact that – if pointed out to her right now – wouldn’t really help in this situation. Why did she have to find out on her own? What had he done to offend the fates that much? They surely wouldn’t be holding his super-human interventions against him, now would they? After all, hadn’t it been fate that had sent him to Earth and to Lois in the first place? But if it wasn’t the fates, then *who* was it who was out to get him?
“I was…,” Clark began before rewording. “Before you I only…” He probably shouldn’t finish that sentence. “Ah, I never had been…” He swallowed. “I was a virgin,” Clark finally mumbled.
Lois shook her head after a few moments’ silence and began muttering. “A virgin,” she said as she slowly went back to pacing. Only this time it was a slow pace, as she was lost in thought instead of simply agitated. “A virgin! I don’t believe it.” She looked at Clark, who did his best to look sincere and contrite. “I deflowered Superman. Who would have guessed?” She stopped and looked at the wall behind the TV, affording Clark with a great view of her beautiful cotton-clad backside.
Clark kept staring at Lois, at once relieved that she believed him and worried about where her mind would take her next. With Lois in a mood like this, even *he* wouldn’t dare taking a best guess. And given how even under normal circumstances his best guesses usually meant he had about a fifty percent chance of them at least pointing him in the right direction of her wild tangents, he wasn’t willing to make any bets what so ever right now.
Lois turned back around, looking at him warily. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you? This isn’t just another lie to hide some big, dark secret, or something? You really never did have sex until two nights ago, did you?”
Clark forced himself to answer instead of mulling over her worries. Staying silent wouldn’t help him right now. Not that it usually worked with Lois anyway. “No, you were the first woman I’ve ever had sex with.”
Lois sniffled loudly at that and turned away from him again. “And now you hate me,” she whispered.
Her silent words hit Clark with all the force of a kryptonite-coated wrecking-ball. One second he was obsessing about how Lois would react, the next her words ripped through him, tearing him apart. Then he was up and standing behind her in the blink of an eye. Lois hadn’t even had the time to realize what was happening when Clark turned her around so she faced him again.
When his right hand lifted her chin, she was still staring blankly at him through a sheen of silent tears. “I could never hate you,” he whispered before crushing her lips with his.
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Lois wasn’t sure what was happening. One moment she realized that she had robbed Clark of something special. He wouldn’t have waited for so long if it didn’t mean something to him. And now she had taken this precious gift from him. She had robbed him of the chance to be with his true love for the first time. Clark must surely hate her now. How could she have done-
Her lips were suddenly engulfed in a very warm and very familiar pair of male lips and she began to respond on an instinctive level even as her mind became a pinball being flipped around between the various pits of her worst nightmares. But then Clark’s tongue gently traced her lower lip, seeking entrance and its female mate inside her mouth. When their tongues touched with a first jolt of recognition, Lois’ her mind slowly settled, held captive by the heady feelings Clark was invoking deep within her soul.
Strong arms enfolder her, one hand slowly creeping up to her neck and into her short tresses, pressing her mouth closer to his, sealing them together. Her own arms finally began to wander as well, snaking themselves upwards and closing around his neck as she deepened the kiss.
Lois slowly became aware of the fact that her mind had begun to blank out even more than it had before and she pulled away from Clark’s mouth and instead rested her forehead on his chest as she panted heavily in a desperate attempt to re-oxygenate her starving lungs.
When her brain was once again flooded with oxygen, she arrived at a startling realization: Clark didn’t hate her. “Why don’t you hate me?” she asked him shyly, keeping her eyes steadfastly away from his face.
She felt Clark take a deep breath as he stiffened slightly and she began to worry even more. He had reacted just like that when she’d told him she wasn’t on the pill. And then he hadn’t said anything until he had told her that she had robbed him of his virginity. How could she have done that? What sort of person was she? And why had he kissed her just now? Why didn’t he hate her? Oh god, she was so confused.
“Lois,” Clark whispered before he pressed his lips into her hair to breathe a soft kiss onto her head. “Lois, why do you think I would hate you?” he asked her gently while pulling her closer against him, his right hand caressing the back of her head.
“Why wouldn’t you? I seduced you. I did everything I could to embarrass you, to put you up for display. I… I… said all those horrible things to you after we had... And I took your virginity.” Lois struggled for a moment against Clark before she managed to pull away from him. “You waited twenty-eight years for the right woman and I took that from you.” She hugged herself as she turned away from Clark. “So how can you say you don’t hate me?”
There was an awfully long second of silence before a strong arm wrapped around her shoulder. Lois tried to escape, but this time Clark wouldn’t budge. When he lifted her chin to force her to look at him again she tried to shy away, unwilling to bear the thought of gazing into Clark’s eyes and only seeing his disgust for her in them.
“Lois,” his steady voice tore at her resolution. Clark sounded so much like Superman right now, and his public voice had always managed to command her – and everyone else’s – attention. “Look at me. Please.”
Lois slowly brought her eyes to bear on Clark’s face, still avoiding direct eye contact. He looked tense, but there was no disgusted sneer on his face.
“Do you want the truth? Unabridged and unfiltered?”
Lois nodded, preparing herself for the verbal lashing she was about to receive. And she had to make absolutely sure that she wasn’t going to burst into tears when he told her how much he didn’t like her. That wouldn’t be fair to him, especially not after all their recent history.
“Fine. So here it goes.” Clark took a deep breath. “*You* were the one I waited for. I would never have made love with you that first night if I hadn’t thought that you were in love with me, too. And you hurt me, deeply. The things I thought I had done to you…”
Damn it! Damn her eyes! Damn those tear-wells of hers. She *wasn’t* going to cry. She was going to listen to Clark. And then she was going to accept his judgment and leave. But she wasn’t going to cry.
“But this doesn’t change the fact that I still love you.”
Lois blinked and for the first time since she had jumped out of his lap, she made eye-contact. And the warm shimmer in his deep pools of chocolate – they actually reminded her of the color of the nougat truffles she had wolfed down earlier – proved to be the final drop that burst the dam. Dammit! Why was she crying *now*? Clark still loved her. And what did this mean anyway? Did he wish that he wasn’t in love with her? Had he tried to hate her? And were those thumbs of his brushing her tears away? She had to stop crying. And she had to say something to him. Something sensible. Like… like… “I do not *not* love you, too,” she sobbed.
Clark pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead before asking her, “Do you want to sit down again?”
Lois barely nodded, not willing to spend precious brainpower on such mundane things as talking. No, she needed all her wits figuring this out. And to will her body to stop crying. Not necessarily in that order.
When she felt her legs brush against something soft, a small part of her brain informed her that she had reached the couch and sitting down was now possible, so she allowed Clark to gently pull her down onto the couch again before asking in a still tear-clogged voice, “And what are we going to do now?” Lois’ eyes were once again focused on the red and yellow sigil in front of her.
“Talk?” he supplied solemnly.
Lois mulled that single word over in her mind. Clark wanted to talk. And he still loved her. And she still felt like a piece of crap for what she had done to him. So, how was talking about this going to make her feel any better? “Talk?”
“Yes, Lois. Talk. And listen. Not that I’ve done a stellar job at that, but I’m willing to, now.” He took her hand in his where he sat next to her, and she took the hint and turned her head to face him.
He looked so Clark even while he was dressed in blue spandex. How could she have missed this for more than a year and still think of herself as an investigative journalist? “Why have you lied to me for so long? You say you love me, but you hurt me so much. How can I… trust you?” She swallowed. “How do I know you won’t hurt me again?”
Her eyes bored into him, and she saw him flinch at her questions. But was it from guilt or because he didn’t have an answer? And would she prefer it if he could answer her question or if he couldn’t? After all, if he knew the reason it would mean that he had to be aware of what he had done, and had chosen to go down this path in the first place. And if he didn’t, then how could she be sure he would know better the next time a taxing situation arose?
“Because I didn’t know how to tell you. Because you only loved Superman.” He held up a hand, preempting her objections.
And he was right. She *had* only acknowledged her love for the caped superhero. He had been safe. The alternative to mere mortals who could and would hurt her. Superman would never have hurt her because there would never have been anything between them.
“Because I was too self-absorbed to deal with anything but my own issues.”
Only Superman *had* hurt her when she had told him that she would love him even as an ordinary guy and his only reaction had been to disparage her words.
“Because I was stupid and thought I wanted something that couldn’t be in the first place.”
She really *was* stupid. And when combined with Clark’s own deficiencies on this subject, it was a wonder they managed to write a straight sentence between them, let alone conduct the investigations that lead to those sentences being written in the first place.
“Because if you don’t trust me, we won’t even have a chance for friendship, let alone love.”
She hadn’t really been a stellar example of being a trustworthy companion, either.
Lois let her eyes find his again, presently staring back at her with worried expectations before she let her gaze drop away once more and instead snuggled up against his shoulder. At least in this position, she wouldn’t be in any danger of looking into his eyes again as she contemplated what Clark had just told her. And he was spot on with his final statement. If she wanted back what they had, she had to trust him. It was as simple as that, yet infinitely difficult at the same time.
Before Clark it would have been easy. She hadn’t afforded any man a second chance. So why should she do it for Clark? She sighed. Clark had been honest with her. And he at least deserved that she was honest with herself, too. Didn’t he? And if she *was* being honest, then the answer was right there, in front of her and scary as hell.
Lois took a deep breath and pulled away from Clark so she could again look into his eyes, still wary with worry. She had already known all of what he had just told her. She had known it when she had snuck into his apartment. She had known it when she had decided to share her byline with him. She had known it when she had offered him her version of an olive branch. She wanted Clark back. Her Clark, the wonderful friend and the potential for more that had been so close that she had almost been able to touch it before lashing out and pushing him away.
But did this translate to her trusting him with her heart? Her heart had obviously decided that it was willing to trust him. But was she willing to allow her heart to dictate the decision to her brain. After all, up until now, her brain had been the one safeguarding her heart, fending off anyone who tried to encroach on the most fragile part of her psyche. And she had to admit, her brain had been *really* good at it. Luthor had been the decision of her brain. Punishing Clark had been the decision of her brain. Deliberately setting out to systematically burn all the bridges between Clark and herself after their first night together had been a decision of her brain. Luckily though, Clark could fly, so burnt bridges didn’t mean that much when it came to him.
>>Brain, you’re fired!<< Lois told herself silently before she leaned in and gently kissed Clark’s lips.
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Clark wasn’t sure what had driven him to lower his pants, metaphorically speaking, but once he had started, it had all tumbled out. All his regrets. And all the reasons why she shouldn’t trust him. And the one possible reason why not trusting him might hurt even more. And then he had waited. Waited for her to decide where they would go from here.
His hopes had dropped when she had pulled away from him, and her eyes had taken on a determined sparkle. He knew at that moment that she had decided on their future, he just hoped she wouldn’t do anything rash-
Warm lips nibbling on his, gently tracing his mouth. A soft tongue dancing between his lips but never quite entering his mouth. A fleeting moment of the sweetest contact, gone all too soon.
Clark’s heart raced as his mind tried to salvage what was left of his sanity. Then he realized what had just happened. Lois had kissed him. Gently and without the thunderstorm of raging hormones. And now she had pulled back again, her still wet eyes shining brightly, capturing his gaze and his attention. Lois had kissed him.
“If you ever do hurt me like that again, I’m going to get my hands on some Kryptonite and show you what I’ve learned during my Tae Kwan Do lessons,” Lois informed him with a steadfast voice, her solemn expression leaving no doubt that she wasn’t willing to accept him hurting her ever again.
And as strange as that might sound, he was perfectly willing to live by this rule. After all, it meant that she was willing to try the trusting-thing with him again. And he had no intention of behaving like a complete lunkhead ever again, so her beating him into a pulp wasn’t really that much of a threat anyway. “So, you are willing to trust me?”
Lois nodded once.
“I’m glad.” He afforded her a hint of a smile before continuing, “And where do we stand now?”
Lois shrunk back a bit at that. “I’m not sure, Clark. Two weeks ago you were my best friend. Two days ago I felt so incredibly betrayed by you. And now we’ve made love, twice, for all sorts of reasons except the one that counts.” Lois suddenly paused, swallowed and looked down. “And if that wasn’t already enough, I might end up getting pregnant. So, what does that make us, Clark?” she challenged him.
Clark stared back at her, mentally shaking himself. How could he have forgotten about that detail? Especially after the way her words had shaken him up the first time. So what should they do, given how whisking Lois off to Vegas for instant married bliss wasn’t an option?
Not that he wouldn’t be overjoyed to marry her as soon as possible. But with their relationship in such disarray, marriage was the last thing they needed right now. And even if Lois did get pregnant, it wouldn’t matter. A baby was no reason for getting married. Not when they had so many things to still work through in the first place and he could still be there for her and the baby no matter where their relationship stood.
So what should he tell her?
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tbc
